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Psychology

Review Essays of Academic, Professional &
Technical Books in the Humanities &
Sciences

Secrets of the Soul: A Social and Cultural History of Psychoanalysis by Eli
Zaretsky (Alfred A. Knopf) Freud and his followers dominated American psychiatry
after World War II. By the 1970s, they fell out of fashion. What happened? How
could a man whose writings and personal magnetism "permanently transformed the
ways in which ordinary men and women throughout the world understand themselves"
have left behind "a pseudoscience whose survival is now very much in doubt?"

That is the question the historian Eli Zaretsky asks in
Secrets of the Soul. Many psychiatrists and therapists would argue that Freud has not sunk quite as low as Zaretsky suggests, that
psychodynamic therapy, derived from psychoanalysis, helps many people. (If
you're quiet, you can hear the therapists bristling at "pseudoscience.") But
while Einstein, Edison and Henry Ford, to name a few of his contemporaries, have
endured as iconic figures, Freud has fallen far from the intellectual pinnacle
on which he stood a hundred years ago.

Zaretsky's explanation has to do with the way
Freud's ideas became intertwined in society, culture and, most important,
economics. As society changed during the economic upheavals of the past century,
Freud's place in it changed, too. If, to paraphrase Harold Bloom, Shakespeare
invented what it means to be human, Freud invented what it means to be an
individual in an industrialized, mass-produced world. Before Freud, life and
work centered on the family. But the industrial revolution took work out of the
family and, for the first time, gave people an identity separate from that of
their families. Freud helped us understand those new identities, Zaretsky says,
in a way that both eased the transition and sowed the seeds of revolt.

Freud's ideas were crucial for the success of
what Zaretsky calls the second industrial revolution. The first industrial
revolution was the transition from factory to farm. The second was from factory
to vertically integrated corporation, typified by the Ford Motor Company, which
forged its own steel, grew its own rubber trees and controlled the whole chain
of production, right down to the dealers who sold Fords in any color you wanted,
as long as it was black.

Ford and his imitators had to create demand
for the products they could now produce so efficiently, and Freud's consumer was
exactly what they needed: The individual was seen as "infinitely desiring,
rather than capable of satisfaction," Zaretsky writes, "an image that was
indispensable to the growth of mass consumption."

But Freud and his utopian followers,
including Wilhelm Reich, Herbert Marcuse and Norman O. Brown, also helped spark
the countercultural revolution of the 1960s, with its challenge to industrial
society. As Zaretsky points out, psychoanalysis rejected the "suffocating
conformity" of the family, encouraged "authenticity, expressive freedom, and
play" and led student activists to conclude that work should be satisfying, not
merely a way to make a living. Eventually, when that movement collapsed, Freud
was taken down, too. A more experimental, drug-oriented approach to therapy
began to displace psychoanalysis, and managed care's restrictions on treatment
delivered the fatal blow.

This is only a sampling of the issues that
Zaretsky discusses in this expansive, authoritative work. He charts the many
shifts in Freud's thinking over the course of his long creative life. He
recounts the ways in which psychoanalysis spread from Vienna, across Europe, to
the United States and around the world. Zaretsky also sorts out the complex web
of friendships, schisms and rivalries that enveloped Freud and his disciples,
continuing after Freud's death in 1939.

Perhaps because it is so ambitious,
Zaretsky's book is also challenging and difficult at times. Dedicated readers
will find their efforts rewarded; those who don't already have some familiarity
with the basic tenets of psychoanalysis might have more trouble.

But then, as Zaretsky demonstrates, we all have some familiarity with Freud,
whether we've read him or not. Freud and his followers "introduced or redefined
such words as 'oral,' 'anal,' 'phallic,' 'genital,' 'unconscious,' 'psyche,'
'drives,' 'conflict,' 'neurosis,' 'hysterical,' 'father complex,' 'inferiority
complex,' 'ego-ideal,' 'narcissist,' 'exhibitionist,' 'inhibition,' 'ego,' 'id,'
and 'superego.' " Freud left us with the indelible understanding that we each
have an inner world, and that it binds us to the social and political world in
which we live. Zaretsky does an admirable job of showing us how he did it.
Reviewed by Paul Raeburn Copyright 2004, The Washington Post Co. All Rights
Reserved.

Evolving
Perspectives on the History of Psychologyedited by Wade E. Pickren,
Donald A. Dewsbury (American Psychological Association) Brings together
important historical writing published in APA journals over the past quarter
century. Includes several seminal papers from the 1970s and 1980s, as well as
more recent examples of the finest work in the genre. Underscores the importance
of social and cultural history in the shaping and development of psychology.

Excerpt: This volume contains 27 chapters presented in
seven sections. In Part I, we provide the reader with an introduction to
historical methodology historiography. Students in courses in the history of
psychology often have no sense of how the methods of history differ from the
methods of psychological research. Without at least a rudimentary grasp of these
principles, students will not understand the basic premises or conclusions of
the scholarship that follows. Failure to provide such an introduction would be
comparable to neglecting to inform students in a course on basic learning theory
about the research methods used to study learning.

The discipline of psychology emerged in a particular social
and cultural context. It did not simply appear on the intellectual and
institutional scene full‑blown. To succeed, psychologists had to address
critical issues of methodology, organization, and public relations and be able
to differentiate their practices from those of neighboring approaches (e.g.,
philosophy, physiology, and psychical research). How were psychologists able to
successfully find a niche for themselves in American scientific and professional
life? What were their struggles, and with whom did they compete? In Part II, six
chapters together offer substantive insight into how psychologists responded to
these challenges.

The next three sections present historical scholarship
focused on various aspects of psychological science and practice. The selection
is meant to be representative, because a complete range of research and practice
cannot be included due to space limitations. Learning theories have informed and
guided much of 20th‑century research in psychology. Ivan P Pavlov
(1849‑1936), John B. Watson (1878‑1958), and B. E Skinner
(1904‑1990) remain important figures for psychologists today. The chapters
in Part III offer historical insight into their lives and work.

Part IV offers examples of historical scholarship on
psychology as a social and behavioral science. The three areas represented here
are developmental psychology, psychometrics, and personality psychology.
Although each of these areas would benefit from further historical research,
these chapters indicate the rich potential of understanding psychology as a
human science.

The period between the two world wars was one of great
change and increasing social anxiety. Psychology in this period also experienced
significant change. Standard textbook histories typically present the period as
dominated by neobehaviorism and fail to address the heterogeneity of the
discipline and the emerging professional practice of psychology. In Part V, four
chapters illustrate psychology and psychologists in this period. The chapters
provide nuanced histories that address issues of status, both personal and
professional, among psychologists and their organizations, and we should note
that the impact of the Great Depression on psychologists is an important text or
subtext in these histories. The question of cultural style and its influence on
psychological science is also addressed.

After World War ll, clinical psychology emerged as the
central professional practice of psychology and reshaped the public perception
of the psychologist into that of a mental health professional. Of course, these
changes have a historical context and have not gone undisputed within
psychology. Psychoanalysis, although disparaged by many psychological
scientists, proved to be an initially rich resource for the conceptualization
and treatment of psychological disorders. The three chapters in Part VI provide
a window into the development of clinical psychology and some of the controversy
provoked by that development.

Since the late 1980s, the APA has had an entire directorate
devoted to psychology in the public interest. Yet, American psychologists have a
long history of interest in and devotion to social issues and causes. In Part
VII are four representative examples of the history of psychology in the public
interest: the moral project of psychology as represented by four psychologists'
utopias; the struggle of women to find a place at the table of psychological
science; the problem of anti‑Semitism among psychologists until World War
II; and a fresh perspective on Kenneth B. Clark, the only African American to
ever serve as APA's president.

We envision various uses for this book. Most standard
textbooks in the history of psychology present the accepted canon, or grand
narrative, of the progress of psychological thought from philosophers to
physiologists, to Wilhelm Wundt (1832‑1920) and William James
(1842‑1910), the socalled schools of psychology, and post‑World War
II transformations of the field. There is much of value in this approach.
However, recent scholars have pointed out that this oversimplifies the process
and leaves much out. This has implications for the manner in which courses are
taught and has resulted in some teachers of courses in history of psychology
avoiding the use of textbooks in the course. This volume should prove useful to
such instructors in organizing material and providing some structure without the
constraints of traditional textbooks.

Other instructors feel responsible for making their
students familiar with the prominent people and events in the field as portrayed
in textbooks, although they recognize the constructed nature of this canon and
want to enrich their courses to reveal for their students a hint of the
complexity that exists at a deeper level. The present volume should be a useful
supplement for such instructors. Of course, there are many instructors who are
happy with standard textbooks but may want to enrich their own lectures or
provide additional readings for students; this volume should be useful to them
as well. Finally, we hope that there are readers with an intrinsic interest in
the history of the field who will find pleasure and enlightenment in some of the
best historical scholarship of recent years, even though they may have no
courses about which to worry.

This
volume is offered in the belief that the history of psychology is itself a
viable and veridical way to understand psychological processes and phenomena.
German philosopher‑historian Wilhelm Dilthey (18331911) perhaps put it
best a little over a century ago: "The totality of human nature is only to
be found in history; the individual can only become conscious of it and enjoy it
when he assembles the mind of the past within himself" (1976, p. 176).

This history is superior in the number
of topics covered and the diversity and number of illustrations,
and the number and professional standing of the authors who have
contributed to the articles. The combination of pictorial and
verbal snapshots in this book has the character of a family album
of academic psychology. It makes the discipline human in ways a
more abstract approach cannot. As a one volume reference it is
superb. Any serious reader will find some information on topics
not covered in many other reference books.